Fairy Tale
by Dudeybob
Summary: Three times Ron visits Hermione in her bedroom in Shell Cottage; once to make sure she's all right, once because he knows she isn't, and once to read her a story. By the second night, he knows he never wants to fall asleep without her by his side.


**Three scenes between Ron and Hermione at Shell Cottage. **

Ron padded careuflly to the closed door and knocked lightly. He pushed his hands into his pockets nervously as he waited for her to answer him, and hoping he hadn't woken her up if she was sleeping. But then her voice called faintly from inside, still sounding tired and fearful and Ron's heart twisted painfully. He wasn't used to hearing her like that. She was bossy and annoying, her voice went on and on too fast for him to keep up and in a know-it-all language he barely understood. But then again, he didn't knock either. A lot had changed in the last few days.

The door creaked, sending an unnatural wave of sound through the quiet Ron was trying to keep. He could hear Fleur bashing pots and pans together as she pilled them into cupbooards, taking no care in her apparent anger. Griphook must have got on her nerves again. Luna's voice carried from the floor below too, and Ron wished they would all be quiet, for Hermione's sake and the others who were still recovering.

Hermione beamed when she saw him, and he was so thrilled to have put that expression on her face that he grinned back and forgot he was supposed to be treading carefully. He bounded fowards, tripping on an uneven floorboard and almost crashed to the floor, but Hermione held him up with a casual flick of her wand. Ron's ears turned pink as he muttered his thanks. So much for coming to make sure _she_ was all right.

"Er...hi," he said awkwardly, as if they were meeting for the first time with a mutual friend who had excused himself. Hermione smiled again, more tentitively, as if she were afraid he would fall again. "I thought you might be getting a bit bored, stuck up here on your own. You weren't sleeping were you?" He said, panicking suddenly. He'd tried to knock quietly in case she was, but he couldn't even walk into a room without tripping so no doubt he could mess that up too.

"No, I've been having difficulty with that actually. It's a bit annoying really as this is the first time in months I've had a proper bed to sleep in and now I can't even enjoy it."

"Oh yeah," said Ron sarcastically, "because that's really something to worry about. Forget being almost killed every other day."

Hermione threw her pillow at him.

Ron batted it away with a scowl, but a smile threatened to take its place. He hadn't realised how much be missed fighting with her, how much he wanted her to lecture and boss him around again.

"May I remind you, Ronald, that it was _you _who has not stopped complaining about weather, food and uncomfortable sleeping arrangements since we left." Her eyes narrowed dangerously, flashing with the kind of anger that meant she was gearing up to throw something else at him, or perhaps inflict him with a hex.

Ron glanced at the red spots on her cheeks and before he could stop himself, he burst out laughing. As soon as he made the sound, he tried to clamp his lips together and contain it, hoping to turn it into a cough, but the gleam in his eyes gave him away and then he was laughing again, searching Hermione's face for what was sure to be a furious expression, but unable to stop himself.

But then, to his wonderous surprise, her own smile cracked and then she too was laughing, her sound much higher and at first contained, but then the laughter took over her too and she was almost shrieking with it. She pulled her knees up to her chest with the duvet still covering them, buring her face in its softness to muffle her giggles and it was so good to hear such a sound from her, that it only fuelled Ron's.

It was a long time before they could both stop, but amazingly, they were not interrupted. Perhaps Harry had decided it was a private moment, not to be disturbed. Or perhaps Fleur had and had forced a job upon their friend to keep him from bursting in on them. Either way, they continued to laugh together without being sure of what was funny, just that they had not been able to find a reason in so long.

Finally, they sobered, the sounds dying slowly in their throats and coming back for the occasional encore. Ron moved closer to Hermione's bed, taking the chair beside her with much less hesitance than what he had entered the room with, as if the shared laughter had been his permission to be there. His forgiveness.

...

The next time Ron ventured into Hermione's room, she smiled at him, weakly. It was late, past midnight, but he knew she would not be sleeping. Somehow, he had felt it from his own bedroom that he shared with Harry across the hall. For a long time, he had tossed and turned amongst the sheets and Harry had hissed at him to keep still, but he had been unable to so much as keep his eyes closed he had been so restless and awake.

At first, he had not known what was keeping him up. He'd spent only a few nights in a decent bed, he should still be so in awe of it that sleep should have come easily. They were working all day, tring to plot to break into Gringotts and with Hermione still not quite herself, he and Harry had to have more imput than usual and he was exhausted. So it made no sense that he was still staring at the wall when he heard twleve chimes.

Then he had heard a slight shuffle from her room, just the sound of someone twisting amongst sheets and a light sniff caught in one of his rare moments of stillness and he had known. He'd glanced to the other side of the room and made an experimental drumming with his fingers to be sure that Harry was asleep before rolling out of bed and creeping from the room.

She did not look surprised to see him and beside the weak smile, she gave no greeting at all. Ron once again took the chair beside her bed, his dressing gown flapping comically around his feet and sending a slight breeze up the legs of his too small pyjamas.

"I just can't stop thinking about what she did to Neville's parents," she whispered into the almost blackness, tears glistening in her eyes. A soft shaft of moonlight slipped through the open curtains, shining on her face and Ron wished they were closed so he didn't have to see the ones that escaped and rolled down her cheeks. "It's horrible, and she was right there with her wand on me and throughout all I could see was those vacant expressions on their faces. And one scene that kept playing over and over again, just that one moment when Neville slipped the sweet wrapper into his pocket."

Another tear spilled and Ron reached out a hand to pat her awkwardly on the shoulder. He wanted to put his arm around her properly, but she was lying down and he did not want to be so forward as to slip under the sheets beside her, although there was nothing he longed to do more.

Hermione's hand slipped from underneath the thick duvet and crossed over her chest to cover his. She closed her eyes, but not peacefully, and clasped his fingers hard in hers. He stroked hers gently with his thumb, her skin smooth and electric.

"It was you who stopped me from losing my mind," she admitted, her voice almost too soft to be heard. "I heard your voice calling my name, even when the images flashed so vividly before me that I was sure they were real."

Although it could not be seen in the dim, silver light, the tips of Ron's ears reddened and the flush spread to the ends and crept into his cheeks, but it was not embarrasment that tinted his skin, but a strange glow that was not quite happiness, it couldn't be while crystal tears still gleamed on Hermione's cheeks, but it was something deep and real that felt like Hermione's hand closed over his.

Then he no longer cared about being too strong, he lifted the corner of the duvet that cucooned her and climbed beneath it, wrapping her properly in his arms and she responded, twisting her body to fit his shape, her head burrowed into his neck. She did not wet it with her tears as he had thought she would, and he was relieved. Seeing them was more than he ever needed again. His hands nestled in her hair, feeling it bushy and tangled between his fingers.

And when the sun rose, splitting through the open curtains far eariler than they would have liked, they awoke with sheepish expressions, and when he could, Ron untangled himself from her and returned silently to his own bed, knowing as he slipped between cold sheets that he would never sleep without her.

...

Ron didn't speak to her on the next night. Not directly. He sat on the chair that held his imprint and fiddled nervously with the sleeves of his too small shirt. It was late, the others were in bed but he had known that Hermione would once again be unable to sleep and so would he. He'd once again waited until Harry was sleeping, although after their conversation earlier that day, he must have known what he was planning. Ron cleared his throat and Hermione peered curiously at him, frowning at his hands that wouldn't stay still and the twich in his eye he got when he was nervous.

"Once upon a time," he began, much to Hermione's surprise. She had been expecting a grudging confession that he'd spilled tea over her copy of _Hogwarts: A History, _and couldn't remember the spell to clean it. He didn't look at her, but instead down at his lap. "There was a beautiful girl in a land that was probably really far away-Harry said they always are- and the villagers were-er- really blown away by her beauty," he looked at her then and Hermione's confustion had turned into utter bewilderment.

"But this girl was modest and she never paid much attention to all their gaping, probably got a bit annoying really, a bit like going out in pub lic with Harry-" he stopped and scowled, seemingly annyoed with himself before resuming his tale. "Anyway, she just wanted to get out of the village because she was a bit of a know it all and read a lot of books and wanted an adventure like the characters in them had."

Finally, Hermione recognised the tale. Beauty and the Beast, her favourite fairy tale. But Ron could not possibly have known that. How did he even know the story?

"She had a dad but not a mum because no one in fairy tales ever does for some reason. Maybe all the mums are close by. Her dad went away a lot to try and make his fortune so he could give his daughter a good life even though she kept telling him she just wanted him there but he was a bit of a rubbish dad really, so he kept going away anyway. And one day, she got upset and started crying because he was leaving her again and to cheer her up he said he'd bring her something back, anything she wanted, and after a bit of thinking she said she wanted a-some snow?" He stopped, confustion knitting across his features. He was sure that wasn't right.

Hermione giggled. "A rose," she corrected. "A rose as white as snow."

"Er, right, a rose."

Hermione listened as Ron continued with the story, not interrupting him when he made several more mistakes and gave the beast an enchanted shrub and Belle a psychological compulsion to put herself in danger. He also told it as if the beast would die within the year rather than be doomed to that state forever, and Belle's father was eaten by a pack of wolves (although, this was apparently a deliberate mistake because he did not deserve her as a daughter).

He reached the end of the story (in which he wondered out loud why on earth Belle was kissing a monster and how she ever fell in love with him to begin with). "It's not the looks," he said, hurridely, for Hermione had risen her eyebrows in a warning sign. "It's just that he's literally a monster. A different species. And Belle's friends call her beauty. Like, why would she marry someone who's not even human?"

Hermione just rolled her eyes. "Ron, it is so like you to completely miss the emotional depth to the story."

"Right," Ron aruged, raising his voice just a notch too high. "So if I turned into a talking dog would you-" He stopped. A strange stranggling noise issued from his mouth, but no more words so he snapped his lips together again and looked down at his lap, once again becoming very interested in getting his sleeves to cover his arms.

Hermione smiled down at her own lap, mirroring Ron's actions and twisting her hands together. "As long as you still had the emotional range of a teaspoon, Ronald, I'm sure your appearance would not hinder the way I feel about _you." _

"Right, I'll keep that in mind next time I want to impress you. Beastiality is romantic.," he rolled his eyes, his voice dripping with sarcasm as he lifted back the duvet and climbed in beside her.

Hermione slapped him aross the shoulder and then left her arm to rest there, streched across him and he tucked his around her waist. "Just because he was not the most obvious choice for Belle, that does not make him the wrong one," she said firmy, in a tone that Ron didn't dare argue with. He just rolled his eyes at the ceiling and pulled her in tighter, not bothering to fight the broad grin that slid over his face.

He waited until Hermione was asleep, breathing heavily in his arms, her form relaxed and peaceful before he bent his head awkwardly to kiss the top of hers. "Night Belle," he whispered, closing his eyes to the smell of her that sent him into his own gentle sleep.

**I don't review every story I read, but if you do have the time, I appreciate it. **

**Also, it's only 110 days until Christmas. **


End file.
